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Politically correct lovers
REVIEWS BY SANDY HUSEBY
If you've been shocked -- shocked! -- by the scandalous political conduct of late, be assured that politicians have been misbehaving since our nation was founded. Susan Wiggs casts her writers' eye back the to the gilded age of late 19th century Washington to create a charming tale of what can happen when love and politics are jumbled. In Wiggs' Halfway to Heaven, U.S. Rep. Jamie Calhoun isn't above using a romantic connection to Senator Franklin Cabot's daughter to advance his agenda. For erstwhile amateur astronomer Abigail Cabot, the idea that she is being pursued by a roguish Southern congressman causes both excitement and alarm. After all, her heart belongs to dashing Lieutenant Boyd Butler III. She's willing to reveal her own deep love for the lieutenant in letters, but the letters she pens are on her sister Helena's behalf. When daddy is a powerful senator who wants both his daughters married off, and one of those daughters is a plainspoken woman with the soul of a poet, no mere congressman can resist. Wiggs' writing shimmers as brightly as Venus on the evening horizon. Her flair for crafting intelligent characters and the sheer joy of the verbal sparring between them makes for a delightful story you'll want to devour at once. But savor it, because from the first page, you, too, will be Halfway to Heaven.
By Susan Wiggs Mira, $6.99 ISBN 1551668378
Wild, wild West
If American history was told this vividly in the classroom, everyone would be clamoring to visit the Old West. In Maggie Osborne's captivating The Bride of Willow Creek, Angie Bartoli's pays a visit to a Colorado mining town to settle old business. Deserted as a teenaged bride, Angie has waited a decade to track down Sam Holland and get her divorce. From the first punch thrown -- by Angie at the train station -- to the sucker-punch to her heart when she discovers that Sam is a package deal, Angie learns the past decade was much more complex than just a separation. Sam's daughters, Lucy and Daisy, and Sam himself weave a hold on Angie's heart as she scrambles to grow up and learn to accept and forgive. Maggie Osborne never shies from tackling complex family and social issues as she tells her inveigling tales, and The Bride of Willow Creek sustains her stature as one of the best.
By Maggie Osborne Ballantine Ivy, $6.99 ISBN 0449005186
Flower power
The magic of fantasy brushes the four novellas of Once Upon a Rose with added dimension as four gifted storytellers -- Nora Roberts, Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan and Marianne Willman -- join forces in this evocative anthology. The frozen island kingdom Deidre rules is as ice-locked as her heart, and only the strongest of warriors, Kylar of Mrydon, can free both the land and queen in Roberts' rapturous tale of a Winter Rose encased in ice until love's power burns through. The flowery theme continues in Gregory's The Rose and the Sword, Langan's The Roses of Glenross and Willman's The Fairest Rose. Each gifted writer adds her tale to the bouquet with a blend of unique storytelling that is as subtly nuanced and seductively overpowering as the bouquet of roses that is its namesake.
By Nora Roberts, Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan and Marianne Willman Jove, $7.99 ISBN 0515131660
Medicine woman
A frontier doctor dedicated to her father's patients faces a special challenge when a new patient enters her life with a Secret of the Wolf. Johanna Schell explores the frontiers of medicine with hypnosis, opening the mind of Quentin Forster to a heart-wrenching confrontation with his nature and the power of each to set aside their fears to love. Author Susan Krinard's commitment to visceral and provocative storytelling makes Secret of the Wolf an irresistibly shadowy, surreal mist rising from the pages to lure readers in.
By Susan Krinard Berkley, $6.99 ISBN 0425181995
Sandy Huseby writes and reviews from her homes in Fargo, North Dakota and lakeside in northern Minnesota. |
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